10,000 Spoons
by NeverMineToHold
Summary: The Doctor hopes to find comfort on Earth, but the city around him is like a labyrinth, trapping both mind and body, forcing him to stop running – from himself and someone else...


Title: "10,000 Spoons"

Status: OneShot; complete

Fandom: Doctor Who (New Series)

Characters: Tenth!Doctor/Simm!Master

Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC; I'm just playing (you don't sue fans who just have fun, you don't!)

Rating: T

Genre: mild slash, angst, dark, character study

Warnings: unbeta'ed

Note: Title from the song "Ironic" by Alanis Morissette ("it's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife")

Summary: The Doctor hopes to find comfort on Earth, but the city around him is like a labyrinth, trapping both mind and body, forcing him to stop running – from himself and someone else...

10,000 Spoons

He had left his TARDIS an hour ago, wandering around as aimlessly as his thoughts; drifting with the wind. The smells and sounds of Earth with its humans bustling about were familiar, and yet devoid of the comfort he had hoped to find here.

The chirping of sparrows and laughter of children, as they ran after their ball, the shouting on the marketplace and the endless chatter all around – it fused and became an indistinct buzzing. A background noise that filled the space between his echoing footsteps.

The shoppers with their plastic bags parted to let him through and then closed the gap behind him. It made the Doctor feel as if he had doused himself in repellent, but, this time, he was sure he hadn't.

He told himself it didn't bother him. Predictably, his young, insecure self, tugged away inside him, remained unconvinced.

He followed the street, trying hard not to trip over the uneven stones; an unaffected expression held firmly in place. He didn't care where his feet might take him. He passed the stalls with vegetables and fruits without looking and was in turn ignored by the vendors. That seemed wrong, somehow, but the Doctor didn't stop – never had, never would; always on the run. He could admit to that, but lying to himself felt easier still, if more cowardly.

The sun overhead vanished, swallowed up by dark clouds and the wind picked up, making his coat billow dramatically behind him. The people scattered while the Doctor increased his pace and left the town square. He found himself on a narrow, empty street, framed by houses with dark windows like gaping holes.

The sight felt like a metaphor.

The Doctor didn't hesitate to move on, even though each step produced an echo more hollow than the one taken before and all junctions started to look the same. He found it fitting since his thoughts were already trapped in a labyrinth, circling back and forth, worrying that dark feeling as if trying to determine how long it would take to make himself bleed.

No one kept him company to pull him out of it – just as he had wanted when he had left his friends behind. Maybe travelling alone had not been a wise choice. But the silence inside his TARDIS could no longer be filled with a companion, not after meeting another Time Lord only to lose him again. Human companionship could not compare to what another Time Lord could have offered him. It didn't feel the same – never had, although there were times when he had managed to forget his isolation.

Sarah Jane had been ignorant of his true feelings and the Doctor was grateful: no one liked to be a mere substitute. He heard her voice clearly. "You act like such a lonely men although you have the biggest family on Earth." - She had no way of knowing that he had always remained a foreign object, an outsider, a literal alien, only loosely connected to mankind through his companions.

Those brilliant humans... But when he looked at them, now even more so than before, he saw _too much_. The present, yes, but he also saw the wriggling mass of dividing cells and chubby cheeked kids they had been. - And beyond that lay their withered faces full of wrinkles, soon to become rotten husks of decay. While the Doctor didn't know the personal time line of a living being, had never possessed the ability to look and know, like a soothsayer, he knew and saw how time flowed from life to death for everything around him. He kept a firm hold on his focus but it had become increasingly difficult to keep the present in sole view.

Time, the first difference to divide them. And yet only one of many reasons why he missed his own people... Why he missed the Master so much: he would have lasted, an eternal companion. Now only the memory of his presence remained, that whisper of another mind, a fresh burning in the gaping hole of his race's mind link. He keenly felt his absence. The one who always came back – _gone_. Saving the Doctor had been the Masters last act before the Time Lock had swallowed him.

Sarah Jane, Martha, Jack – they would have never understood his longing for the Master, a man they only knew as a murderous psychopath. The fact remained, though, that had he been able to choose the only other Time Lord to survive the fires that had ravaged Gallifrey, it would always have been the Master, no matter his past deeds. Not that the Doctor had any delusions that he held the moral high ground – he himself had committed genocide and not only once. He had always been quick to judge without any right and he was too tired to try and be the better man anymore. Maybe he had never known what that truly meant to begin with.

The Doctor stopped walking. He was lost in the labyrinth of streets as night fell with alarming speed. The shadows crept closer to where he stood, swallowing one house after the other. This couldn't be right – no lights had been turned on and all sounds had vanished.

Rose's face flashed unbidden before the Doctor's minds eye. Sweet caring Rose, so human, enough so that she had managed to tame the anger of his younger incarnation – she had left him, too. Not by choice, no, but she would have died in the end. No connection with any human could provide him with what he needed to fill that hollow place.

Donna... She might have been able to understand, once, before her memories had to be sealed. But the Doctor would never wish for her to know the loneliness of being the last of your kind. His link to each and every single Time Lord ripped apart, like roots that floated freely without a ground to sink into.

The Master gone was almost too much. Because they had been friends and so much more, before youthful stupidity and too many rejections had twisted the Masters frightening, boundless love into ugly resentment and finally hate enough to kill.

Looking back the Doctor had no way of determining how much of Koschei's feelings had survived the drums, because he had only ever seen madness and never bothered to ponder the sudden change in his friend. He had just used it to escape a love that felt like a trap, just as he had fled from Gallifrey and the rest of his people.

Like the Master had accused him, the Doctor hadn't listened. Thus, the drums, that cursed signal, could not be blamed alone for the Master's transformation.

It saddened him, now that he was mature enough to long for that love and ready to accept it, that the chance was lost. Like torture he remembered with a jolt how familiar they had been with each other. They had been connected, knowing the other inside out, to a degree no human could possibly bear – like the children they are, it would have frightened them.

Sharing your thoughts and dreams, holding nothing back, neither good nor bad, giving it all... To allow another to leave traces of himself in your mind, in that energy field between firing synapses, the one mankind called 'soul' and Time Lords, pragmatic as always, simply named 'ego'...

The Doctor did not dare imagine how the attempt could damage a human mind, but for them it had been as natural as breathing and felt like bliss.

Standing in the eerie dark of night, the memory alone was enough to speed up his heartbeats... But something was not _right_. He never allowed himself to ponder this, never dared to look long enough to reflect or brood or remember. He always stared straight ahead and forgot his past; his modus operandi since he had started running.

"What is this?" The Doctor finally shouted, his voice sounding muffled and the persistent echo gone.

Like Gallifrey, planet Earth erupts in flames and this time, he burned with it.

XXX

The Doctor woke with a startled gasp and his instinctive flailing send him hitting the metal ground with a thud. Blinking rapidly he lay there, ignoring the burning sensation that stung his eyes. The Doctor sniffed and lifted his arm, using his coat sleeve to wipe his running nose.

His TARDIS hummed a low-key tune, powered down to conserve energy – a trip to the rift was in order if he didn't want to strand himself. A moment passed in silence, until the Doctor chuckled, the sound anything but amused as it bounced through the console room.

"A dream," the Doctor mumbled as he struggled to pick himself up. "Great. Really don't want to contemplate what that says about my mental state."

"Probably nothing good," a smooth baritone replied from the general direction of the door, the tone heavy with both amusement and gentle mockery.

The Doctor plopped limply back to the floor, and watched with rapt attention as shoes emerged from the twilight. Italian fabrication, handmade, real leather...

"Hallucination with fashion sense," he muttered, trying hard not to curl up on himself. "That's cruel. First a dream and now this."

"You shouldn't be surprised. Had I been in my right mind I would have never worn something as garish as a hoody in the first place," the Master pointed out.

The Doctor felt nauseous from a suddenly blooming headache and didn't reply. He closed his eyes but couldn't block out the feeling of a warm body kneeling down beside him or the gentle bump of a knee against his ribs.

"You are trying too hard, my dear," the Master said and chuckled, having seen the Doctor shiver at the endearment. "Such a lousy excuse for a telepath, giving yourself a headache trying to deny my existence."

The Doctor dared to open one eye and peered sideways at the Master kneeling there, in his ridiculously expensive, perfectly fitting Italian suit. The image was a tad too close to his Harold Saxon persona for comfort and yet, a thrill of pure excitement sped up the Doctor's heartbeats. This change in demeanour could only mean that the Master had somehow stopped himself from burning through his own life force. - Not to mention that he had escaped the Time Lock if he wasn't a hallucination. _If_.

The Master rolled his eyes and settled down beside him. "Open up! You're getting more dense with each regeneration – and your attention span fares no better."

While his tone was mocking, the Master's pose was genuinely relaxed and as non-threatening as possible and the Doctor was grateful that he made the effort. He didn't feel up to elaborate schemes or battles of wit. Or pretty much anything, truth be told.

And then the words registered and it hit him. "OH!"

The Doctor 'opened up' like the Master had said, letting go of the layers upon layers of shields he had erected to protect his mind. His headache vanished instantly and as the Master smiled, he could _feel_ it as a flicker that pervaded the presence of the other Time Lord. No hallucination and no device in existence, future or present, could have reproduced that sensation.

A sliver of doubt remained regardless and the Doctor did what he always did: he followed his instinct and poked the Master's chest. Hard. He sat up quickly, arranged his long legs out of the way – and did it again. Rapidly.

The Master scowled but bore it with dignity, although his look turned more sour with each repetition. Finally he rolled his eyes in the exact same moment the Doctor felt a huge grin stretch his lips impossibly wide.

"You're really here! You're alive! Look at you, Master! You're here! And your regeneration is as stable as they come!"

"Brilliant deduction, Woodpecker." The Master's scowl reached dangerous proportions. "Will you _stop_ that infernal poking!"

"Right, sorry!" The Doctor dropped his hand quickly, failing miserably at looking chagrined, "But – you're here. Inside my TARDIS." He stopped, taking a few seconds to ponder that statement, while the Master straightened his mistreated suit. "How? Why come to me? What about the others? The Time Lock - "

" - is closed for good. No more signal, no more drums. And no Lord President throwing around a light show like Zeus with his fancy glove. Only you and me. And if you want details... then you will have to ask me really _nice_."

"Will I?" But half-way through teasing, the Doctor felt his grin freeze. A Master without the drums would be more dangerous than ever, and this regeneration had died once already to be free of him, backup plan or not. "I -"

Warm hands cupped his face, stealing his voice away with the shock of being touched. The Master's mind, though still shielded, brushed his own in the lightest of caress. The Doctor shuddered and allowed himself to be pulled closer, until their foreheads rested together; his hands rose automatically to mirror the possessive grasp.

"Not hating you is hard, Doctor," the Master whispered.

He was so close that the Doctor breathed in the words that tickled over his skin. He kept still, although panic flared up inside him, battling with the stubborn remains of hope, nestled somewhere deep inside him.

"But I remember your offer, my dear. Let us try and travel the stars together."

Before the Master crushed their lips together, long before the battle of tongues turned gentle, before desperate whispers and the taste of salt, the Doctor managed to say five words:

"It will be my honour."

End

AN: There's a button for feedback, but maybe you knew that one, huh? ;)


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